gordon’s posterous

Gordon Bowman

I'm in Sales at Pandora.

Previously I started a startup, BlastGroups.

Things I'm passionate about: making things of value, venture capital, technology, startups, product strategy, simple design,   branding, creative advertising.

Other things I love:
music, investing, screenwriting, running, cycling, good food, wine, reading, San Francisco.

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The End of the Mouse. The Beginning of Touch.

I've written before about how the next big thing in computing is touch and the ways in which Apple was leading that charge. Well this week Apple made another move toward touch computing with their new Magic Trackpad.

Here's Macworld's first look and review. Essentially, with the Magic Trackpad, you’ll be able to use all the same multi-touch gestures you’re used to on any Macbook, i.e. the two-finger scroll, swipe, rotate, etc.  

My favorite tech blogger right now is MG Siegler of TechCrunch (mainly because of his clever and hilarious headlines). Yesterday MG wrote about the Magic Trackpad and caused quite a stir in the tech world by saying that it signals the end of the mouse era. Then due to controversy on this post, he followed up with further clarification on why he thinks mouse is dead.

Here are some of MG's main points:

"What I am saying is that the Magic Trackpad is the device that is signaling the end of the mouse era. It’s a harbinger, if you will.

I believe that we’re going to start seeing more devices like this (and obviously, not just from Apple) which focus on touch as a way of interacting with desktop machines. But even if we don’t, the desktop machines are slowly fading out as the primary computers in most peoples’ lives. Some people will think that’s absurd, but ask yourself if you already use your notebook or netbook more than your desktop? I know I do. It’s not even close.

That’s exactly what Apple spoke to today with the unveiling of this new peripheral. Most Mac users are now using trackpads as their main point of interaction with their machines. Going forward, this trend is going to continue.

And that’s not even including devices like the iPad and yes, the iPhone, which are also computers. Going forward, tablets and smartphones are also going to be the computing devices that people use much more than desktops.

The mouse is a desktop device. Sure, you can bring a portable one to hook up to your laptop on the go — but just look at young people, kids in college and high school. They don’t do that. The only reason some of us do that is because we’re accustomed to the mouse."

We always have to take what MG says about Apple products with a grain of salt because, well, he is an Apple fanboy after all. However, I agree with MG here that touch will be the main method of input in the future.

Again, back to my earlier post, KP's John Doerr may have said it best when he wrote the issue:

"We’re going from the Old World to a brave New World. From the Old World of the traditional, tired window interfaces… to the wonderful new world of TOUCH. From the Old World of Point and Click to the new SWOOSH of Fluidity."

I, personally, can't wait. Bring on the Minority Report-style computers please.

 


Filed under  //  apple   product design   touch  
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The Next Big Thing Is Touch

I was catching up on some links I've been storing up in Instapaper and came across this article by John Doerr on the iPad and the the expansion of Kleiner Perkins' iFund.    

The whole article is great so I recommend reading it in it's entirety. However, I felt Doerr and team really nailed it with this graphic and section titled under "The New World." It really resonates with my last post about the future of computing being Touch:

The New World

We’re going from the Old World to a brave New World.

  • From the Old World of the traditional, tired window interfaces… to the wonderful new world of TOUCH.
  • From the Old World of Point and Click to the new SWOOSH of Fluidity.
  • Instead of old, artificial, indirect interfaces, the iPad is direct and NATURAL.
  • Instead of WYSIWyg – what you see is what you get – it is WYTIWis. What You Touch… IS what IS.
  • Instead of holding a MOUSE, you’re holding MAGIC.

The second bullet is my favorite here. With iPad, HP's Slate, Google's upcoming tablet, and other future Android-powered tablets, Touch is entering our worlds in a big way.

Need more evidence on the growing importance of Touch? On a day when Apple updated their Macbook Pro line, typically a very noteworthy announcement, the Apple homepage looked like this:

Expect the trend to continue.

 

 


Filed under  //  apple   iPad   product design   touch  
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Great iPad UX Analysis From a 2.5 Year Old

I came across this great video on Laughing Squid of a 2.5 year-old using an iPad for this first time.   

Granted, the author mentions she is already used to an iPhone. Yet with an entirely new form factor she still takes right to it — quickly finding and playing her favorite spelling game, figuring out how to enlarge iPhone-only apps to full-size, navigating from one app to the next, and scrolling through photos (there's a really cute moment when she sees a picture of "her and doggy").

It's just fascinating to me how she interacts with the iPad. She really is one of the new Children of Cyberspace. This first line from that article stuck with me:

"My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader."

Unlike you and I, these children are growing up completely comfortable with multitouch interfaces. As the Laughing Squid author mentions of his daughter: 

"Her expectations about computing will be shaped by the fact that she’s growing up in a touchscreen world."  

And he's right. For these children it will no longer by point-and-click. It will be TOUCH-and-SWIPE.

 


Filed under  //  iPad   product design   touch  
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